Mysterious spiral of light over northern Norway

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3238877Some back-story:I live in Tromsø, which is a rather small town in the north of Norway. About an hour and a half ago this morning, at 07:45, I was awoken by my flatmate raving on about something "you just have to see!". Dizzy and confused I walked to the door, and peeking out at the sky I saw one of the most spectacular things I've ever been witness to. Now keep in mind that this far north, we barely have any sunlight at all this time of year, so it was still pitch dark outside. There was a spiral of light in the sky, expanding like some kind of green laser. Now, in my town we see the Aurora Borealis every winter, so green lights in the sky is not a new phenomenon. Never the less, in my 20 years here I've never seen anything like this, and for a second I thought it looked like a huge explosion in the distance.We returned inside with much speculation as to what this could be, and I scoured the internet for explanations. Now, at 09:00 the phenomenon has started popping up in articles on local northern news-sites, and appears to just have gone national.

From the article, loosely translated:

quote:A mysterious phenomenen of light on the nightsky shocked citizens of northern and mid-Norway on wednesday morning....

...It spun around and exploded in the sky...

...It looked like it came over a mountain. First it followed a path, until it disintegrated. Then it suddenly became a huge sphere, so large that it covered the entire sky.

Meteorologists in Tromsø have no idea what caused the light:

"We don't know what it is. I don't want to assume anything about it, but it appears to have been very spectacular"

"People describe the moving light as overwhelming, extremely beautiful, and partially frightening. They describe it as a new years rocket that looks like a spinning spiral."

The phenomenon lasted for a few minutes, just before eight on Wednesday morning. The meteorologist says the light apparently has come from the east.

I've also read experts saying that this has nothing to do with the Aurora Borealis, and that it might have been a failed rocket launching in Russia. Has anyone else here seen anything like it, and can someone possibly shed some light (hurr) on what might have caused this?

I don't think a rocket explosion would stay couple of minutes on the air. It will vanish quickly! This is probably a kind of solar explosion, a small space matter, like a meteorite or..... Other options are more intriguing!!!

RowBuddy saidMy wishful thinking theory. Its an Einstein-Rosen bridge between two parallel universes that formed when a microscopic portion of the atmosphere reached absolute zero and collided with a black hole that was passing thru the Earth's rotation around the sun.

My scientific theory: Its a condensation trail from a russian rocket or high altitude airplane. The con trail was illuminated by the moon or contained trace jet fuel fumes that reattached with radiation from a recent solar flare. The spiral effect came from an upwelling in the air currents similar to a supercell thunderstorm that spawns tornados before the funnel turns on it's side.

Very nice, both the SCI-FI and plausible. It would be very nice for some kind of Fringe Science phenomenon, now if only we had an ability to cross over, some remote that we can slide from one to another (Sliders), or how bout a dimensional mirror that we can walk through (SG-1) or just some sort of field projector (Fringe) but its probably something more tangible like you said rocket trail mixed with air currents.

"A taste of a large scale cosmic event. Antimatter or some other exotic particle hitting the atmosphere, a tiny blackhole appearing and disappearing."

Probably not a black hole. By the time those are large enough to observe, they're not evaporating for a while. Most antimatter reactions produce photons way outside the visible range, and it's unlikely scattering would produce a rotating spiral. My guess is the coherent large-scale structure rules out any cosmic ray event.

"My wishful thinking theory. Its an Einstein-Rosen bridge between two parallel universes that formed when a microscopic portion of the atmosphere reached absolute zero and collided with a black hole that was passing thru the Earth's rotation around the sun."

Haha, nuff said. If we ever violate the third law, it had *better* look this spectacular!

Spirals *do* show up when charged particles interact with strong linear magnetic fields. However, the whole spiral pattern is rotating in those videos, which makes me think it could be an atmospheric effect like Rowbuddy said. Do we have any idea of the altitude? Photos from other locations could help us triangulate the scale of the effect...

The spiral is too flattened for it to be a wind shear effect on contrails. It's a disc in fact with a trailing helix.

If it is indeed a contrail it would have a helix trail. Even if it was jetting exhaust both behind it and to its sides at very high speeds, the trail should still have been a helix, not a spiral disc, because it is after all, moving.

The disc seems to be moving with whatever thing is whirling in the center, and definitely not trailing behind it. Notice one of the pictures after it 'collapsed'. The spiraling 'ripple' effect is still there though faint and with shorter wavelengths, extending perfectly away from the center until it fades out.

Plus navigation warnings issued by the Russians just before the event which indicates that the most likely explanation is indeed a failed launch in which the rocket spiraled out of control because of a leak somewhere along its length.

A 3d simulation has also been made of what theoretically happens in such situations:

So yeah. Rocket launch. Something went wrong, the rocket started to vent on its sides causing the blue trail (might be the second stage thrusters activating prematurely, or might be a leak in the fuel, or might be lateral maneuvering thrusters that malfunctioned). The thrust tangent to the main boosters drove the rocket to start spiraling madly until it has lost all its forward momentum making it seem to hang up there in the sky for a moment before exploding.

The Russian submarine, Dmitri Donskoy, currently stationed in the White Sea area has a history of failed missile tests. It's either an RSM-56 Булава class missile or an R29RMU Синева class missile. Both launched from a submarine.

Булава has a long history of failed launch tests. While Синева produced a very similar strange 'lightshow' earlier last November:

Nov. 1 missile launch (Sineva):

Bulava:

Missile tests just before Obama arrives. Are the russians saying something?

Sedative saidYeah. The most damning evidence is probably the morning after:

Plus navigation warnings issued by the Russians just before the event which indicates that the most likely explanation is indeed a failed launch in which the rocket spiraled out of control because of a leak somewhere along its length.

A 3d simulation has also been made of what theoretically happens in such situations:

So yeah. Rocket launch. Something went wrong, the rocket started to vent on its sides causing the blue trail (might be the second stage thrusters activating prematurely, or might be a leak in the fuel, or might be lateral maneuvering thrusters that malfunctioned). The thrust tangent to the main boosters drove the rocket to start spiraling madly until it has lost all its forward momentum making it seem to hang up there in the sky for a moment before exploding.

The Russian submarine, Dmitri Donskoy, currently stationed in the White Sea area has a history of failed missile tests. It's either an RSM-56 Булава class missile or an R29RMU Синева class missile. Both launched from a submarine.

Булава has a long history of failed launch tests. While Синева produced a very similar strange 'lightshow' earlier last November:

Nov. 1 missile launch (Sineva):

Bulava:

Missile tests just before Obama arrives. Are the russians saying something?

Awesome! Knew someone would figure it out... that thing was freaking me out a little, lol.